Dutch West India Company

The Dutch West India Company (GWIC) was a Dutch trading company that was active from 3 June 1621 to 1 January 1792. The company was given a charter for trade monopoly in the Dutch West Indies by the Dutch Republic, and it was given jurisdiction over the Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. The company was instrumental in the brief Dutch colonization of the Americas, including New Netherland, in the seventeenth century. After the loss of the Dutch colonies in North America, the GWIC's main focus shifted to Dutch Brazil, which was conquered by Portugal. In 1674, unable to pay its debts, the GWIC dissolved, but it was refounded in 1675, and it inherited the old GWIC's ships and fortresses. After the Dutch Republic lost many of its colonies to Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War, the Dutch government bought the company's stock in 1791, and, on 1 January 1792, all territories previously held by the GWIC were reverted to the rule of the States General of the Dutch Republic.